


Speed

by tevlek



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Cars, F/M, Marianne likes to go fast when she learns how it feels, butterflybog if you squint, i don't know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5998807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tevlek/pseuds/tevlek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marianne gets a ride home from her father's business rival, which indirectly inspires some of her lifestyle choices after the Roland "misunderstanding."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speed

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know if you could call this a story.  
> This is just something fueled by listening to "Burning Desire" by Lana del Rey one night.  
> I posted it on tumblr earlier this month and finally got around to posting it with the rest of my stories here.

The most terrifying night of Marianne’s young life was also the most exhilarating.

Of course, back then she was younger and more oblivious to her own needs. Everything about her life had been about Roland. So little of it seemed to actually belong to her, she didn’t seem to be in charge of anything at all, no matter how many times Roland claimed she was “queen” of his heart. She had attended his parents’ party at the country club after an exhausting day working at his mother’s boutique, trying to smile and keep up appearances on his arm. Physically weary as well as emotionally from trying to keep up a cheery disposition for Roland’s parents through the evening, Marianne nearly passed out face first into the vichyssoise. Thankfully, Roland let her beg out of the next few courses and call it an evening. Unfortunately, at the same time he neglected to remember that he was her ride home.

She fidgeted in the entryway for about five minutes, smiling and greeting familiar faces that crossed her path. After a stretch of barely-hidden yawns and dozing against the wall, Marianne escaped to the parking lot, hoping Roland would remember the crucial detail and finally meet her there. Sitting on the uncomfortable bench just beside the doors, she tapped her toes on the cement, drumming her fingers on the wooden slats she had roosted upon until she caught a whiff of acrid smoke. She hated the smell of cigarettes and how it lingered on anyone that smoked them or anyone who walked through the same room as them. One glance to her right revealed its source. Bogart King, her father’s business rival, was having a smoke not six paces away from her bench.

Marianne knew of Bogart well enough. He was permanently locked in a bad mood and was so thin he looked like a stick insect with his neutral suit color choices and mousy brown hair. Marianne crossed paths with him a few times but his mother spoke volumes on her son’s personal life whenever they had mixed in the same circles. It was because of his mother he came to the country club, it was where she set him up on most of his infamous blind dates. All of them were known for ending quick and clean with disinterested girls and an even moodier Bog gracing the office with his presence the next morning. She knew the stories even though he worked in a completely different company and he surely knew who she was as well. She had been one of those blind dates after all.

Griselda had insisted on Marianne going to lunch with Bogart to try and negotiate a pairing between his and her father’s companies. A partnership would have been more beneficial than a rivalry but when he showed up looking puzzled then gradually more irate through the business lunch, Marianne realized his mother had told him a different story. Bogart apologized for his mother’s meddling and paid for the meal before hightailing it out of there. Marianne calmly finished her pasta dish then went on her way. They never spoke of it again.

Now here he was, forcing her to breathe the same air he was exhaling with every puff of that cigarette. Well, maybe he wasn’t forcing her, she could have moved at any moment. She pressed her lips together stubbornly, wrinkling her nose at the smell. One quick glance made her wonder who he had bailed on this time and was surprised that in the outdoor lights flanking the walkway up to the Country Club’s entrance she could see that he had worn a nice suit that was black. It was a change from the earthen tones of his usual business wear. His suit was black enough to make him nearly melt into the shadows around them. The flare of the cherry on the cigarette and his skin seeming to glow through the darkness were the only telltale signs someone was even there at all.

“Never thought I’d see you ducking out of there.” He commented through a stream of smoke, lowering his hand to his side with the cigarette between his fingers.

“I’ve had a long day,” she said coolly, waving away the cloud of smoke with a quiet cough. “Roland’s going to take me home.”

Bogart glanced behind them at the doors expectantly. Marianne followed his gaze and her confidence deflated the longer the doors remained shut. After a few moments passed, he shifted again and leaned against the post of the elegant awning sheltering the walkway. He kept to the shadows instead of stepping out into the light. Another one of those facts his mother had mentioned to her more than once. Apparently he liked to keep himself obscured whenever he could. Marianne ignored his comment and settled further into her spot on the bench, wriggling her hips a bit to try and get comfy but her tailbone was beginning to feel the pressure of the decorative seat.

“He seems to be in no hurry to leave.” Bogart commented, Marianne’s eyes slanting at the cigarette when he took another inhale of the toxic smoke. She watched it spill through his nose and lips like a dragon preparing to breathe fire from the shadows of a dark cave. The fanciful imagery drew a slight smirk to her lips and she looked away before her imagination could conjure up more.

“He has a lot of friends inside. Give him time to say his goodbyes.” She huffed primly, shutting her eyes and pressing her back into the bench.

“Do you want me to wait with you until he comes?” She opened her eyes and nearly jumped when she saw the towering man standing beside the bench.

She hadn’t heard him take a single step closer!

“Ah—it’s up to you.” She stated lamely, averting her eyes as he twisted about and settled into the other side of the bench. He reached over and ground the cigarette into the sand of the standing ashtray to the right of the bench then leaned back with an uncomfortable noise made in his throat.

“Who designed this thing?” He frowned and Marianne resisted the urge to smile, feeling the bench wriggle when he shifted on it. “This has to be the most uncomfortable seat I’ve ever sat on.”

“Maybe your butt’s too bony,” she suggested with a shrug of her shoulders but slapped her hand over her mouth immediately after the crude word had slipped out of her mouth. Eyes darting to Bogart in shock, she was surprised to see that he was hardly phased by her choice of words and actually chuckled.

“Maybe so.”

They waited together for a while, a few words exchange in the night as well as a lot of uncomfortable shifts and several comments on the horrible bench. However, Roland never emerged from the Country Club and Marianne was beginning to zone out again, her chin in her hand while propping it on the left armrest. She nearly drifted off until she felt gravity pull her chin from her palm. Jerking upright to try and startle herself awake, she noticed Bogart watching her and knew her condition had not gone unnoticed.

“You’re clearly exhausted,” he commented, folding his arms. “Why don’t you go in there and drag him out?”

Marianne laughed, “Me, drag him out? Yeah, right, I don’t have the muscle to do that.”

“You don’t need muscle.” He sneered while nodding back in the club’s direction. “The fact you want to leave should be enough to motivate him into taking you home.”

Carefully biting at her lower lip, Marianne hunched her shoulders a bit. She deflated at the idea of trying to force Roland into doing anything. What right did she have to hurry him along? “I don’t want him to think I’m needy or selfishly wanting to take him away from his friends.”

Bogart scoffed, “His friends can spare him long enough to take his woman home.”

“Well…I’m sure he has a perfectly good explanation for taking so long,” Marianne dropped her shoulders back down but the words lost their steam the longer she spoke.

“You’re worn out, Marianne.” He pointed out, the familiarity of her name surprising her but she shouldn’t have been that shocked by it. He knew her name as well as she knew his after all. “Why don’t I just drive you home?”

“What?” she gawked at him. Her father’s rival driving her home? What would he say?

“Don’t give me that look.” Bogart rolled his eyes, shifting again on the bench to face her. “I’m not that heartless that I would avoid giving someone a ride home when they need it.” Leaning back again he jerked his thumb toward the door. “If you don’t want my help, go back inside and pester him until he will. I’m heading out either way.”

He reached into the pocket of his suit and withdrew a set of keys with a little jangle before rising to his feet.

“God that bench!” he groaned, pressing the heels of his hands into his lower back and arching. Marianne could hear the crack and pop of his vertebrae resettling, amused by the sound. She was probably going to have the same problem when she got up herself.

“I can’t just leave without telling him!” Marianne insisted as he started to walk down the path towards the cars.

“Text him!” he called back over his shoulder, giving the keys another rattle over his shoulder but didn’t stop walking.

Squirming side to side on the bench, Marianne contemplated going back inside. She could go find Roland and remind him he was her ride home. Then again, if he hadn’t come looking for her by now after remembering he was her ride, it was a sure bet he hadn’t recalled it on his own. Marianne sometimes had her doubts about Roland’s intellect but she really wanted to look past it in favor of his other redeeming qualities. Fidgeting to the point of her tailbone grinding into the seat, she finally jumped up and stalked after Bogart in the direction he had gone.

She found him in the parking lot leaning against a black muscle car that looked like it had been pulled from the pages of a classic car magazine. Only an older car would have enough leg room for a man that tall and she inwardly rolled her eyes at the obvious fact he would have a muscle car. All wealthy business men had fancy cars. Her father had his cars but he owned luxury sedans and a nice BMW. Nothing like the sleeping beast Bogart leaned so casually against, waiting for her. He snickered when he saw her approach, stepping away from the door and opening it up for her with a gallant bow that left Marianne exasperated with his mockery.

Marianne sat down in the passenger’s seat and arched an eyebrow at the obvious lever in between the passenger and driver’s seat as she twisted around to bring her feet inside. She barely heard the door shut behind her while she was puzzling over the random lever. There were numbers on it but she didn’t understand their purpose, her confusion shifting to Bogart when he slid inside and slammed the door shut, noticing the look on her face. His eyes darted down to the lever then back into her face with a cocked brow.

“Your father only drives Automatic, doesn’t he?”

“Yes…” she dragged the word out since it was obvious.

“I guess this is your first time seeing Manual.”

“Manual?”

He gawked at her and she shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, I heard of them but I never rode in a car with one. I don’t really understand how it would be any better than just simply putting a car in drive.”

“You poor deprived soul,” he shook his head and Marianne felt the sudden urge to strike him with her clutch but the unladylike thought left her hands remaining firmly in her lap. “I guess you’re in for a surprise then.”

Marianne arched an eyebrow this time, “What do you mean? It’s just a car.”  
Bogart clicked his seat belt, sticking the key into the ignition with a slow smile curling at his lips.

“Buckle up.”

—

She was going to die! Marianne Fairwood was going to die at twenty-freaking-two years old!

Her hands were braced on the door handle and on the side of her seat, her arms taught with muscle-straining tension and eyes bugged open wide when the night flew by them in flickers of street lamps and indistinguishable shapes. Her fingers were painfully latched to the smooth leather of the seat to the point where she thought her nails might have been puncturing the thick surface. Every now and then she managed to look at Bogart, watching his hand shift from the wheel to move the lever—more commonly known as the stick shift, apparently—in a practiced shape that Marianne couldn’t memorize. The car accelerated around every turn and curve of the road that hugged the hills of their home town’s outskirts. The engine roared in a throaty display of pure horsepower rather than purring with the sweetness of a brand new engine and lightweight framework Marianne knew. Bogart’s car was a predator that devoured the road and Marianne was the helpless passenger witnessing its driver’s rather dark glee inspired by being behind the wheel of it.

Marianne’s feet braced on the floor, hands sweaty and starting to cramp from how tightly she held on, her body refusing to lean with the flow of the road. Bogart’s limbs, meanwhile, were perfectly at ease, his practiced hands working the steering wheel without a single twitchy push or faltering fingers on the stick shift. The man knew what he was doing, she gave him that, but it didn’t change the fact that they were careening around sharp turns at ungodly speeds and she was ready to start hyperventilating at any moment.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, beatings its way into her throat when they followed the guard rail that hugged a hillside near the local lake, the skyline of their growing city a collection of colored lights mirrored across the surface. It was beautiful at first glance but images of breaking through that railing and plummeting into the dark waters below drew a whimper from her before she shut her eyes tight and tucked her head down low.

“We’re gonna crash. We are so gonna crash!” she chanted to herself.

“We’re not gonna crash!” Bogart huffed after she had repeated herself nearly a hundred times. He had to recite this negation several times to contradict Marianne’s dozen or so replications.

The drive went on but Marianne finally grew quiet, her hands still death vices on the vehicle but she had to admit that Bogart’s utter trust in the power of the vehicle was fascinating. Cars were used to drive a person from point A to point B, that was the way of it since their creation. However, Marianne had seen Bogart’s face through the drive and while his enjoyment was laced with a wicked smile, it was obvious it was one of the few pleasures he had in his life. She had never seen him look as thrilled as he did driving at that moment, his foot on the gas and hand shifting the lever in a few quick tugs before the engine growled in appreciation and the car zipped ahead with another burst of speed that seamlessly blended into the previous gear.

By the time he reentered the city limits, Bogart decreased the speed to suit the more closely patrolled city limits until Marianne could finally let go of her lifelines. She massaged her fingers up to the point when he pulled up in front of her house, parking the car at the end of the long driveway without approaching the gate. She fumbled with the door handle, stiff fingers slipping the first try before she yanked on it and staggered out of the vehicle with shaken steps before he could even unfasten his seatbelt to offer to open it for her. She had been so dazed by the experience, her adrenaline still rushing through her veins and blasting her exhaustion away that she had forgotten to thank Bogart for taking her home. He apparently didn’t expect it of her either because the moment she was punching the code for the gate’s lock, the car rumbled and slowly slipped away back up the street just as the lock’s light turned green.

———-

One Yeah Later  
______

The engine purred sweeter than a kitten when Marianne guided the car around the curve of the road with barely a hitch. Her hand shifted the car into third and then rejoined the other on the steering wheel, a smirk on her lips as she soared around another bend in a smooth arch. Since becoming the CEO of her father’s company, Marianne had seen more than just the promotion. She had acquired a new taste for life and what it had to offer her compared to what she thought she had to give up for it a few years ago. Now she was the one who needed to be pleased by those around her, not the other way around and the car was her only unfailing companion in a long line of disappointments.

Tilting her head back against the headrest a bit, she enjoyed the little vibrations thrumming through the seat, feeling them tickling through her pants and along her spine. It felt utterly sensual to drive this car, her fingers feeling wicked when she shifted into fourth and laughing when she flew up the road. It was almost like flying, driving like this and she was so glad she had invested her money into such a lavish toy for herself. Going to and from work was an adventure more than a dull drive, her baby never letting her down. Sure, she remembered her first time in a fast-moving car making her nervous as hell. Much like someone losing their virginity, the first time is always a bit scary. Bogart had frightened her with his fierce love for the sensation of driving fast but she didn’t know at the time it would awaken the adrenaline junky in her several years later.

In being promoted to CEO, Marianne had crossed paths with Bogart more frequently. They never really worked together but she saw him at business dinners, charity events, and press conferences. The few times she ended up talking to him, they mainly talked about random things, neither one of them inclined to talking about work since the “rivals” detail held such chatter at bay. You never discuss company plans with your competition! Which was a good thing, considering she probably would have never gotten to know him as much as she had. Marianne found out that Bogart had finally ended the once endless stream of blind dates. His mother was disappointed in him but Bogart couldn’t have looked more relieved when he told her about it in passing during one of their talks.

Even though they weren’t exactly best friends, Marianne admitted she had grown fond of Mr. King. He was grouchy and stubborn, there was no changing that, but he was also prone to moments of shyness that took her by surprise. Such a callous man seemingly cowed by mentions of his personal life or Marianne scolding him for being rude to someone for no reason during their handful of talks in public. The man wasn’t as bad as her father led her to believe he was. Still, she did wish that he dropped the smoking habit. The smell of it always lingered in her memory after every talk and, therefore, led to thoughts of him for much longer than she felt was normal.

Shifting again, Marianne hummed with the engine while hugging the curve of the road. She basked in the flow of the scenery passing the car, glancing at the lake in the sun below. Her foot itched and she pressed a little harder on the gas, turning her eyes back on the road with a giggle as her car practically sang with the acceleration. If Dawn were in the passenger’s seat, she would be screaming by now but also laughing. She might not have been as into the thrill of the drive as Marianne had become but she certainly liked the rollercoaster-like feel of riding along with her.

Marianne spotted the hints of the beginnings of the city limits and sighed, yanking the stick shift back into a lower gear and eased on the break to slow down. Coming back into town meant she was going to have to face the company again and with recent rumors spreading around the water cooler, she was not going to like today’s walkthrough. It was the reason she had avoided going in and took a drive instead. Lila had spammed her phone with texts since her failure to turn up at the office, the device beeping every few seconds to remind her of the number of messages waiting for her. Rosa called twice, understanding the unspoken role that if she didn’t answer by the second one, she wasn’t going to answer at all. She knew that she was pushing it when Jade emailed her, the notification singing out a rendition of Kelly Clarkson’s Miss Independent. She still didn’t agree with the chorus of the song but the opening line was good enough to let her know she had an email. Of course, she would turn it on vibrate when she got back to work. No need to look any less professional than her employees already felt she did.

“Marianne, you were supposed to meet Mr. King at his office today.” Lila sighed, passing Marianne a manila folder as they strode towards her office. She had dealt with two other employees reminding her of this since she had entered the elevator from the parking garage. Garnet barraged her with a summary of how many missed phone calls were aimed at her office while Fiona tried to get three signatures on her way through the cubicles of the fifth floor until she was intercepted by Lila, who snatched the pen away before she could get one more flourish out.

“Shiiit—“ Marianne hissed under her breath, clutching her keys tight in her fist while cradling the open folder in her other hand. The appointment time was written on a Post-It note attached to the documents with the time circled in red Sharpie for good measure. “I forgot that was today!”

“You should have been there an hour ago!” Lila insisted, tugging down at the hem of her lavender blazer as Marianne reached her office. She shoved the door open with her shoulder, scowling over her own forgetfulness when a low voice stopped both her and Lila in their tracks.

“Which is why I came here instead.”


End file.
